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Name of Presenter/Organizer: SERC

Title of Presentation/Talk/Event: Maryland’s Native Bees: Where to Find Them, Why We Need Them

Name of Series (if this is part of a longer series): Earth Optimism

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Dr. Sam Droege’s talk focused on the native species of bees in Maryland, based in the fundamental thesis that they should be protected. Droege presented this idea through an approachable structure of presentation, introducing his own work studying and documenting Maryland’s native bees as a researcher to then pivot into a showcase of some local bee species, using pictures taken captured by his research group in tandem with interesting facts about these individual bees. Through these descriptions the key points of the argument for protecting native bees were communicated to the audience: native bees are non-dangerous to humans because they’re stings are not designed to induce allergic reactions, and native bees are specialists, making them both vulnerable and incredibly important. In particular, the point of native bees’ roles as specialists was emphasized, as their specialist role means they are much more effective pollinators for the plants they specialize in than other organisms are. Honeybees, for a comparative example, are not properly adapted to extract pollen from some plants evolved to require the emission of certain frequencies for their pollen to become readily accessible and are thus poorly adapted to support the pollination of these plants when compared to specialist local bees evolved specially to work with them. Plants performing much better with native bee pollination included even food crops like tomatoes, blueberries and raspberries, who Droege attributed most pollination of not to flown in honeybees, but underappreciated local bee species. The presentation wrapped with a description of how members of the public can support native bee species, through simple actions like supporting native plant growth in their own gardens, and through more involved measures like volunteer work with the presenter’s lab.

Did you find the main points convincing? If so, why? If not, why not? Do NOT simply answer “yes” or “no” to the main question: you need to justify and explain your answers. For instance, are you aware of additional information which supports and/or contradicts the main points? If so, what were they? Did you observe any use of logical fallacies or other failures of critical thinking? If so, what were they?

I personally found Dr. Droege’s appeal for the protection of native bee species very compelling. Before watching the presentation, I’d only vaguely understood how the system of pollination between plants and bees worked and had only really understood that system through the lens of honeybees ubiquitous in modern agriculture. Droege’s specific examples of plants and bees specially reliant on each other for efficient survival was a convincing one for moving me as a viewer away from a honeybee-centric view, and established the importance of native bees in filling niche roles in the environment. By itself this is a compelling argument to protect native bees for the sake of environmental protection, but not an unfamiliar one. Rather, the realization that native bees, not imported honeybees, are often the most effective pollinators for food crops society relies upon was a monumental realization. Not only does this create an obvious argument for protecting so-called “invisible” agents of agricultural productivity, but also implies a greater importance of preserving these native bees. Colony collapse disorder is a great concern for modern agriculture, which currently relies almost exclusively on cultivated honeybees to pollinate crops during their flowering seasons. While a poorly understood phenomenon, colony collapse disorder is generally thought to be affecting honeybee colonies because they are being treated to broadly as generalists, being exposed to too many environments they are poorly adapted for, and thus becoming vulnerable to a host of pathogens and other stresses that can disorganize and doom a hive. Native bees offer a potential solution to this problem, being bees that are both better adapted to efficiently pollinating plants suitable for the native area, and better adapted to surviving their native environment. Cultivation of these bees could be an economically favorable, more reliable alternative to widespread honeybee cultivation, especially as researchers like Dr. Droege do work to help us better understand these more niche species. Their potential importance for future agricultural innovations creates a very strong pragmatic case for protecting these bees, even aside from the emotional appeal that we don’t want non-dangerous bees built for our native ecosystem to go extinct. This connects more broadly to the important idea that environmental protection, and particularly protection of biodiversity, is valuable for human civilization from a purely pragmatic standpoint, as specially adapted species that are threatened as human expansion disrupts their fine-tuned environments can be incredibly valuable for innovation, as varied native bee species could be for agriculture, or as many other species have already proven to be for medicine. That broad realization gives a greater value to conservation work done by researchers like Dr. Droege, as well as to the simple work he appeals for hiss audience to undertake in his presentation.

One thing I especially appreciated about Dr. Droege’s presentation on native bees was that he didn’t stop at explaining that their role as specialists put them at risk from human expansion, didn’t top at explaining their emotional appeal and pragmatic value to society, but instead ended his presentation with an appeal to his audience to act on his message and a guide on how to go about doing that. Presented as a simple project where an audience member with some land would dump out fertile growing chips and plant specific plants native bees rely on, the plan was shown to be simple and relatively accessible. While not a home or landowner myself, I found the pitch compellingly simple, and crucially felt that it would actually be worth something for me to go and follow through on it. Unlike well-intentioned but ultimately ineffective appeals to the public to plant a tree, or donate to carbon offsets, Droege actually explained the small-scale, tangible value of the work he pitched and how it would actually have an impact. Small-scale environmental protection work should be focused as this is, rather than trying to have individuals try and take down a brick wall by chucking pebbles at it. Actions like raising your own honeybees (specifically called out by Dr. Droege as environmentally worthless) or adopting a vegan diet may make us feel good on an individual level, but they lack the actual effectiveness that something like planting specific plants to protect important local species or becoming involved in actual activism have. Being able to do small things that have a real impact on bigger problems is important for socially conscious people living in a busy world, and I appreciated Dr. Droege offering a real way for his audience to engage in that kind of meaningful effort without making such work seem unapproachable.

Name of Presenter/Organizer: SERC

Title of Presentation/Talk/Event: What’s For Dinner? Reconnecting Our Food with Our Climate

Name of Series (if this is part of a longer series): Earth Optimism

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Jessica Fanzo’s presentation focused on the relationship between our food system and climate change, with the fundamental thesis that the food system needs to be restructured. Given the vast scale of the food system, the presentation was broken into differently focused sections, highlighting the problems of the current food system as related to both climate change and human health, the specific practical implications of these problems, and possible solutions to these challenges. The current food system was indited for emitting so much greenhouse gas emissions on its own that without change its emissions make reaching Paris Agreement goals impossible, and for failing to adequately provide for the world’s population, resulting in over half a billion people still being malnourished in the modern world, including a large numbers of children whose growth has been affected by malnourishment, and also resulting in a system that fails to account for the nutritional needs of people, creating reliance on nutritionally bankrupt ultra-processed foods (creates problems of malnutrition and obesity). These issues mean in practical terms that our food system is damaging the environment, potentially compromising our ability to grow food in the future, while also failing to prevent primarily low-income people in developing countries from suffering malnutrition. To address these issues, Fanzo proposed a primarily policy-oriented solution, where in governments would use subsidies, taxes and regulations to incentivize large actors away from undesirable activities like unsustainable farm management (focusing mostly on breaking up monocultures), large-scale ultra-processed food production and sale, withholding information from consumers, etc., with additional care also given to support small farmers in poor areas with information to hopefully bolster their ability to provide for their local community.

Did you find the main points convincing? If so, why? If not, why not? Do NOT simply answer “yes” or “no” to the main question: you need to justify and explain your answers. For instance, are you aware of additional information which supports and/or contradicts the main points? If so, what were they? Did you observe any use of logical fallacies or other failures of critical thinking? If so, what were they?

I found Jessica Fonzo’s fundamental point that the food system needs to be restructured for society to move forward compelling and convincing. Her points on the current inability of the food system to prevent people from suffering malnourishment and malnutrition were easily understood as failings with the current system, and the presentation of modern farming as environmentally harmful in a variety of ways was understandable and synthesized well the major environmental concerns that come with farming (enteric fermentation, fertilizer runoff, land expansion, direct emissions, rice paddy emissions, etc.). Coming into this presentation having taken multiple courses at the university on the topic, as well as researching myself, the insufficiency of an hour to communicate the complexities of the food system’s failings were obvious, but Fonzo did a good job of presenting the case to the audience that the current food system will not work long-term without revision. The set of solutions she presented were reasonable, especially when viewing the issue through a primarily socio-economic lens, prioritizing policies that would improve human health by improving diets through greater crop diversity and regulations on processed food gave the presentation of solutions some focus. As with the presentation of the problems with the food system though, an hour was obviously not sufficient to properly explain a comprehensive solution set, at least based on my understanding of the complex issues facing the food system. Despite the explanations of the minute points of the problem she described being lacking or incomplete due to time constraints, Fonzo did do an excellent job communicating the key point not only that the food system is currently insufficient, but that solving the problem of the lacking food system is a complicated, multi-faceted problem lacking a “silver bullet” magic solution. Too often, passionate people trying to imagine a better food system get too invested in one idea for improving our systems and over-simplify their message. The classic example of this organic farming believers, who will preach endlessly that industrial farming is unsustainable, and everyone should eat organically grown food, a belief that sounds great until considering the inefficiencies of organic growing that would leave many to starve simply from lack of production capabilities, and many more priced out from organic produce significantly more expensive than that grown via industrial methods. That being said, I still felt Fonzo’s presentation suffered from a lack of focus, trying to hard to communicate to her audience both the notion of the food system’s failures to support human health and the challenges of producing food in a climate change inflicted world, and ultimately left both concepts under explored and the audience with only the feeling that something ought to be done. I also particularly took issue with the implied notion in her presentation that socio-economic policies alone should be able to fix the food system by addressing currently inefficient and harmful practices. While a mathematically plausible notion based on estimates of the world’s current production capabilities, the multi-faceted, difficult nature of changing the food system, especially via variable government policy, means that without the synthesis and dissemination of technological innovations in the food system, we are very likely to continue seeing people go hungry, a notion I picked up from taking Professor Leonard’s class here at UMD where he specifically refuted the idea that redistribution of calories could actually sufficiently provide for the world’s population. Technological innovation in agriculture is also especially important looking to a future of production in more hostile growing environments induced by climate change. Overall the presentation was a well made for the intention of making viewers aware of the food system’s failings and leaving them with some idea of solutions, but I wish the discussion of solutions would have acknowledged the real role innovation will need to play in our food system rather than providing the questionable idea that policy alone can solve our food system’s failings.